Bye Bye Sunak..

[ZedLeg]

Just out of curiousity I looked up Uni of Glasgow, the international student gold rush is mostly hurting Glasgow in that the boom in student accommodation has come at the expense of building houses for people to live in.

Around 40% of totall enrollment is international (roughly 10k people) and the fees are around the average that Nef posted

https://www.gla.ac.uk/undergraduate/fee ... s2024%2F25

[Nefarious]

If what you are worried about is pure numbers of people, would you also advocate policies like paid (or forced) sterilisation, strict one-child limits, paid emmigration etc etc?

[Mito Man]

Surely if they do an undergrad degree and a masters they’ll hit the 5 years for citizenship? If you have the money and you could bring all your family with you it’s a no brainer???

[Nefarious]

the boom in student accommodation has come at the expense of building houses for people to live in.

A) evidence that, in accomodation providers' eyes, this is a lucrative market (i.e. these are wealthy, high-spending individuals making a positive contribution to the economy)

b) New building might be focused on student accommodation, because that's where the demand is, but they're not reducing the existing stock of housing and AFAIK to domestic population of Glasgow is in slight decline.

[Nefarious]

Surely if they do an undergrad degree and a masters they’ll hit the 5 years for citizenship? If you have the money and you could bring all your family with you it’s a no brainer???

Oh my god, an increasing proportion of post-grad-educated, high-net-worth individuals in society. It's all going to hell in a handcart, I tell thee

[GG.]

Student does not = university though. There are many other ways of getting a student visa seemingly. Some of those courses may be worthwhile - many many not be.

I also don't think that second paragraph [of the post at 11:57] bears any relation to reality. Clearly 750,000 more human beings p.a. is significant extra demand on public services and housebuilding is stagnant. I think that is an idealised view that this is all a net benefit rather than effectively the Tertiary education system milking the system - whether it benefits the country as a whole would need to be much more rigorously demonstrated - I presume there are papers on that as well.

My question above still stands - why does the figure not net out if students then leave. Presumably students then transition to work visas which then means the figure for people entering on work visas being mainly healthcare is not the whole picture.

Basically a majority of the population wants the figure to come down - the question is how do you do that without thowing too many babies out with the bathwater.

[ZedLeg]

Decent rentals are still expensive (my rent is going up to £800pm for a two bed in southside), we need new housing in general. Especially social housing.

TBF there seems to be more residential building now than a few years ago. They threw up tonnes of student accomodation really quickly a few years ago.

[GG.]

If what you are worried about is pure numbers of people, would you also advocate policies like paid (or forced) sterilisation, strict one-child limits, paid emmigration etc etc?

I mean this kind of comment is why it is a struggle to have a sensible debate. So if you propose reducing immigration you're basically a Nazi

I think Godwin's law has been reached and I can bow out now.

[DeskJockey]

Basically a majority of the population wants the figure to come down - the question is how do you do that without thowing too many babies out with the bathwater.

What is the basis for that? Short of Tory/right-wing posturing and distractions, I'm not seeing that as a "key issue" brought up.

[GG.]

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/r ... f-concern/

[Nefarious]

Basically a majority of the population wants the figure to come down

Why would that be? Maybe because various interested parties continue to conflate desirable immigration with "argh god there;s a swarm at the gates" to push the lazy racist buttons and win votes

[Nefarious]

If what you are worried about is pure numbers of people, would you also advocate policies like paid (or forced) sterilisation, strict one-child limits, paid emmigration etc etc?

I mean this kind of comment is why it is a struggle to have a sensible debate. So if you propose reducing immigration you're basically a Nazi

I think Godwin's law has been reached and I can bow out now.

I never said anything about Nazis. You want a reduced population. Rational debate. What other policies would you advocate for a reduced population?

If that's your aim, why target only foreign-born people?

[ZedLeg]

Basically a majority of the population wants the figure to come down - the question is how do you do that without thowing too many babies out with the bathwater.

What is the basis for that? Short of Tory/right-wing posturing and distractions, I'm not seeing that as a "key issue" brought up.

Aye, I’ve not really seen anything saying legal immigration needs to come down. Just the conflated mess that is illegal immigration/asylum.

[Nefarious]

Student does not = university though. There are many other ways of getting a student visa seemingly. Some of those courses may be worthwhile - many many not be.

I'm not judging courses on their worthiness. I'm saying that immigrants on student visas pay, on average, a huge wedge. That wedge is a barrier to it being used as a "loophole" (if that were a thing of concern), and that the impact is not just net positive, but *actively promoted and encouraged* by the government. If we, as a country want student fees of be twice their current level, or to bankroll subsidisation (at a cost to either the taxpayer or at the expense of other public services), that's a choice we could easily make.

[Nefarious]

I also don't think that second paragraph [of the post at 11:57] bears any relation to reality. Clearly 750,000 more human beings p.a. is significant extra demand on public services and housebuilding is stagnant. I think that is an idealised view that this is all a net benefit rather than effectively the Tertiary education system milking the system - whether it benefits the country as a whole would need to be much more rigorously demonstrated - I presume there are papers on that as well.

For the benefit of those not spinning back, I said that those on students pay their way.

How is that not bearing relation to reality? Visa applicants are required to pay their NHS surcharge before a visa is granted, landlords require rent paying before people move in, immigrant students are not eligible for benefits.

Which reality is it diverging from?

Simple economics - if there is a scarily of a good and someone turns up with money willing to pay for more of it, prices rise until such a point when someone is willing to increase supply to meet that demand

[Simon]

The other reason it wouldn't work well is that it would be too easy to avoid falling into that bracket. I have a company; if my profit is £500k in a year and I want to take it out, I could relatively easily structure things so that my wife gets £250k and I get £250k, avoiding the extra. If my profit is £600k I can leave £100k in the company and take out £250k each. £250k each is plenty to live on; and I could waste the money left in the company on a Taycan.

Flat rate taxes avoid this sort of structuring (not exactly aggressive tax planning, so it's not something that could be cracked down on by an anti-avoidance law), but no party is up for tax reform.

What proportion of people who make £250k+ (or even £150k+) are PAYE anyway? It must be fractions of a fraction of the population.

That reminds me - the final ridiculous situation is that in this country we asses benefits at the household level, yet only tax people on the individual level. We should move to the US model where couples can file their returns together. I guess I'm a high earner, yet my wife is a SAHM, which is really important for us as my daughter is only 11 months and my son has some special needs. So why am I taxed the same as an individual and not as a pair of adults who both 'support' the household in their own way?

As I said, the whole income tax and benefit system needs rewriting from the ground up. Of course there will be winners and losers from that, but we need to bring some more fairness to the system.

As for immigration, and having just finished getting my wife through the system, to the thick end of probably £20k or so, there needs to be a national debate about the whole thing without mention of dog whistles or the whistling itself. There's nothing wrong with saying 'immigration is too high' NOR saying 'we need more of these x/y/z workers.'

Let's get the facts out there without any politics and bias first, then have a conversation about what's needed and reasonable on a both a human and economic level.

[Sundayjumper]

If they’ve lost the farmers, they really are screwed.

[ZedLeg]

No one’s laughing at his dad, they’re laughing at his attempt to burnish his working class cred with this solitary fact.

IMG_1154.jpeg (139.74 KiB) Viewed 668 times

Must feel at home on GBNews though, being an old conservative.

[Mito Man]

I thought the audience laughed when he said his father was “a toolmaker” - implying that yes, he had created a massive tool.
Sense of humour fail?

[IanF]

3rd line is accurate